Just as Twitter has struggled to find the right business model to grow faster and make profits, so, it seems, have some of the business ideas that have been built on the platform. Today NBC said that, effective December 31, it would be closing down Breaking News, a social media newswire service that (surprise) delivers breaking news headlines, best known for its rapid-fire Twitter account… Read More

French startup Molotov launched five months ago, but a key feature had yet to go live. Molotov users can now bookmark TV shows and movies in the cloud so that they can watch them later. That’s not all, the startup has also raised $23.3 million (€22 million).
I’ve already written quite a few words about Molotov, but it’s worth reiterating that it’s the best way to watch… Read More

Nationally, bars today lose billions of dollars from improperly managed alcohol inventory. These losses add up quickly as a result of oversized pours, spills and even theft.
Nectar, a stealth connected-device startup operating out of a Palo Alto dentist’s office (of all places), just locked down a $4.55 million seed funding round from the likes of Joe Lonsdale (8VC + Palantir), Lior… Read More

Hulu today is launching a new feature that will make its service more appealing to those who share their account with other family members: user profiles. Starting today, the TV streaming service will begin to roll out to its more than 12 million subscribers the option to enable profiles. A user account can have up to six individual profiles attached, the company says.
The launch… Read More

Vida Health, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based subscription-based app that pairs patients with health coaches, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Canvas Ventures, with participation from Nokia Growth and earlier backers Aspect Ventures and Khosla Ventures.
What’s everyone investing in, exactly? Well, a big market for starters. The Centers for Disease Control and… Read More

Comments on Facebook posts can get quite chatty, so Facebook is trying a new way to help you keep up. Some users now see comment reels appearing as persistently visible chat windows that pop up on their desktop versions of the site, just like traditional message threads.
TechCrunch reader Russell Smith sent us this screenshot. Facebook confirmed to us this is a new feature test on desktop for… Read More

A new video app from Hyper wants to help you catch up on the latest news during your commute. What’s interesting about Hyper News, compared with apps from traditional news publishers, is that it has been specifically designed so you can watch its videos even when there is no internet connection available. This makes it ideal for people who travel on the subway to work, or for… Read More

There are plenty of apps out there that purport to keep you “safe.” Apps that immediately phone your main contacts when you are threatened or attacked. Apps that allow you to share your location with key contacts. But for modern women, especially in big urban cities like New York or London, who would really rather not share literally all that stuff and perhaps find it all a bit… Read More

European startup studio eFounders is raising an additional $5.3 million (€5 million) from entrepreneurs and family offices. eFounders has been behind some very promising software-as-a-service startups, providing human and financial resources for the first year or so before the startups can go and do great things on their own. In exchange, the startup studio takes a significant portion of… Read More

Facebook is launching a series of new features to help people customize their photos and videos in the social network’s continuing battle with Snapchat, an app that put the camera, photos and video at the front-and-center of social interactions. Today, Facebook is unveiling a new tool that will allow anyone, including Facebook Page owners, to create custom profile frames for… Read More

The digital music marriage that many wanted to happen isn’t happening after all. Spotify has given up on its latest effort to buy SoundCloud following months of talks between the two, according to a source at Spotify who is familiar with discussions. Read More

Google today announced that all developers (and not just those in its private preview program), can start bringing their applications and services to the Google Assistant, starting with what the company calls “conversation actions” on Google Home. This allows developers to create back-and-forth conversations with users through the Assistant and users can simply start these… Read More

Hardware kits, internet-connected toys and robots that teach kids to code are now commonplace. But Osmo, an early entrant in IoT toys, is pulling ahead of the pack with funding and partnerships with top names in the field.
Specifically, Osmo has raised $24 million in new venture funding from Mattel, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Collab+Sesame, the venture fund run in partnership by New… Read More

Johnson & Johnson, of BAND-AID and Tylenol (and about half the inventory at your local drugstore) fame, is teaming up with Shenzhen-based accelerator and hardware investor HAX to put some weight behind health startups.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the forward-thinking wing of the cursive font conglomerate, is apparently on the lookout for technology ideas aligned with the… Read More

In the battle of the virtual assistants, Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana, the latter hasn’t had much success off the Windows 10 platform — its iOS app is ranked No. 1,295 on the top charts, for example. In an effort to give its assistant broader appeal, Microsoft is today announcing a redesign of its smartphone application, which is now focused on… Read More

If you’re the owner of a Google Daydream View headset, there’s about to be a lot more content to watch in your little headset.
Today, Google announced that HBO’s standalone subscription app, HBO NOW, is arriving on the company’s Daydream mobile VR platform. The company also announced that Netflix will soon be arriving on the Daydream platform as well, though they… Read More

The primary weakness of Google’s Daydream VR is still a lack of content, but the young platform got a bunch of new software today, including a sizeable list of new games. I tried out a bunch, and here’s a look at what I thought of a few and which ones might help further popularize Android’s built-in VR environment.
1. Gunjack: End of Shift
This sci-fi shooter is a follow-up… Read More

Norwest Venture Partners, the 56-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that counts banking giant Wells Fargo as its single institutional investor, has just brought aboard Parker Barrile as a partner.
Barrile most recently was chief product officer at the fintech marketplace Prosper; before that, he spent five years at LinkedIn, where he was a VP of product.
Because Norwest… Read More